Chapter Text
In the end, she has to hand it to him— he'd always been an expert in taking her by surprise, and it would appear that he's chosen not to shake the habit even in death.
She stares, and she stares, and she stares.
Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina in Mos Eisley is dimly lit, the air all fogged up with cigarra smoke and Marcan vapor and other poisons of choice, but there's no mistaking the broad-shouldered form and the waves of dark hair haloing the narrow face of the man looming over her little corner table. He'd appeared so suddenly that she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd materialized out of thin air. It would suit him, ghost of her past that he is.
However, he looks as made of flesh and bone as any of the cantina's grubby denizens. He blends in with them, too, dressed in the kind of jacket and shirt and trousers that she would expect from any spacer passing through Tatooine. And he's gazing down at her with the same intensity that she had known so well in the time before, although there's a certain haunted edge to it now.
Her knuckles clench to white around the handle of the mug of Jawa beer on her table. If he's not a ghost, then perhaps he's a vision— another temptation that she must surmount. Odd that, even after everything that had happened, there's a part of her that still finds it hard to believe the Dark Side could be this cruel.
Time passes, measured in upbeat swing-bop rhythms and the muddle of assorted conversations taking place all at once. Finally, he blinks. His pale features smoothen out into an inscrutable mask.
"Rey Skywalker?" There's a vaguely sardonic twist to the corner of his mouth, but the sound of his voice is all she can focus on. It's as deep and as resonant as she remembers, and it drowns out everything else. "Does that make you my cousin now?"
Her cheeks heat up as she breaks eye contact to gaze into the depths of her mug. This is a dream, it has to be. There's no way he's standing in front of her, looking like a smuggler and acting like his usual sharp-tongued self.
"It seemed like a fitting tribute," she says at last, in wooden tones. Be it dream or vision, she might as well play along— draw this out until reality comes crashing back. Who knows when he'll come to her again as solid and as vibrant as this?
"I see." Suddenly he's hunching over the table, leaning into her, their faces so close together that the tip of his nose pokes the side of her cheek. If he were someone else— if this were any other man— she would have struck by now. But it's him, and so she is frozen in place. Feeling his warmth, breathing him in. "Tell me," he murmurs, his lips almost brushing against hers, "have you ever heard of the term kissing cousins?"
She registers the smell of alcohol on his breath at the same time that his eyes flutter shut and he slumps face-down into her lap, snoring softly. You're alive, is all she can think at first, staring down at his head of lush black hair.
Ben Solo is alive.
Alive and very, very drunk.
☾✩☽
It's not an easy thing, hauling a man well over six feet and built like a brick wall out of a crowded cantina. But Rey manages, with arms sinewy from training and hard work, and with a little help from the Force. Her speeder isn't equipped for two and so she has to lay him on his stomach behind the lone seat— draped over the hull like a sack of potatoes— and tie him in place with the same rope that she uses to secure goods to and from Mos Eisley.
Once she's satisfied that he won't fall off, she begins the journey home. This late in the evening and out here on the open desert, moonlight falls in sheets. The rolling dunes glow like silver fire as the speeder weaves through their midst.
It's so much like Jakku.
Home is a domed synstone hut perched atop a bluff in the Jundland Wastes. It comprises one large room partitioned into three— living area, kitchen, and 'fresher. The whole structure had been built over a cave, easily accessible via trapdoor and where Rey stores food and putters around in a makeshift workshop. She'd stumbled upon the abandoned hut several months ago and had decided to move in, away from the main hubs and settlements.
It's not that she'd disliked her neighbors, but they were mostly married couples growing old together with hordes of kids running around underfoot. It had been too noisy, that's what Rey had told herself. Out here on the bluff, she's surrounded by nothing but the Western Dune Sea and a few moisture farms scattered on the horizon.
Now she's surrounded by Ben, his long arms loosely clasped over her front as she carries him into the hut on her back. His hair is prickling her neck, his breathing is slow and even in her ear. Stars, but he weighs a ton, even if it's all muscle. She deposits him onto her tiny bed and he barely fits, his limbs hanging off the edge— she'll have to kip on the floor tonight.
Rey makes Ben as comfortable as she can, fluffing the thin pillow— not that there's much of an improvement— and then taking off his boots and his jacket. His black shirt is a tight fit, clinging to practically every inch of his wide chest, and the longing to just curl up on top of him and fall asleep stabs at her soul.
Instead, she telekinetically summons a chair from the opposite end of the living area and sits down beside the bed. She studies his face, her gaze lingering on each beauty mark that she'd once thought— for a brief and glorious moment last year— she'd be able to spend her whole life tracing into constellations. He looks younger with his features relaxed in sleep; he looks like the boy he'd never truly had a chance to be.
He looks... so still.
Just like last time.
She's seized by a burst of panic, her hand shaking as she lays it on his chest. She's suddenly back in that place by the void and he's going to fade away at any moment, leaving her alone again—
His heart beats underneath her fingertips. Borne on the currents of the Force, it seems to echo through the quiet desert night.
Rey, the last Jedi, bursts into tears.
☾✩☽
Ben Solo's dreams are bathed in darkness and whorls of silver fog. Phantom silhouettes flicker at the periphery of his vision, their voices mere whispers in the mists.
The Netherworld is not a physical place, and these fragments are more memory than dream.
Foolish boy. The speaker is female, vast and eternal, everywhere and nowhere all at once. Or fool for love, I should say. It wasn't your time yet.
He shrugs. He doesn't regret it, not really. He wouldn't have changed a single one of his last moments.
Something shifts in the silver-lit gloom. A faint outline of wings, bigger than the universe and all that it holds.
You have to go back. Something is coming. You cannot hide from your destiny.
"No," Ben says. He's surprised by his own vehemence. "I've done my time. I've made my mistakes. I have fought— over and over again—" His fists clench at his sides. "I would like to rest now, if it's all the same to you."
It's not all the same to me. The woman sounds faintly amused. And it's not for you to decide.
The dream skips ahead. In truth, she'd told him so much more before the Netherworld began to dissipate as it is dissipating now, as he is pulled from it by some energy that he cannot yet name. In that moment where everything hangs on a splinter caught between light and darkness, the mists part and he sees her for who she is— catches a glimpse of green eyes and golden robes on opalescent skin.
Find her, she says. You'll need help, so they'll go with you.
Before he can ask who they are, he—
— wakes up.
He feels like a power drill has been taken to his skull; one false move would surely cause his head to break apart into several pieces. His mouth tastes like something small and furry died inside it and has been rotting away for the past several hours. The early morning sun is too bright, filling the hut with garish radiance.
And it really is a hut. He would spare a frown for the shabby environs, but it hurts to even so much as blink. It hurts to do anything. This is the worst hangover in the history of humankind.
Ben groans.
One of them— his mother— is standing next to the bed, hands on her hips. "You were not brought back to life so you could drink yourself to death, young man," she admonishes, glaring down at him.
"It was just the one time," he sullenly protests. Upon landing on Tatooine, he'd been struck by the barren earth, the lifeless winds, and the general air of desolation that enveloped its inhabitants. The grime that clung to their clothes and to their eyes. It had quite literally driven him to drink, the thought of Rey settling here. The first glass of Corellian whiskey had been for that, the next several had been for his— situation. And the last one had been liquid courage, imbibed in a couple of brutish swigs after he spied her across the cantina, looking so thin and wan and lonely in white.
In retrospect, getting completely sauced before walking up to the love of his life who'd seen him die a little over a year ago... may not have been the smartest move.
Leia searches his hazy memories of the previous night. She slaps one palm to her face, massaging her temples as if attempting to ward off a migraine of her own. "Stars, you're even worse at flirting than your father was."
Ben doesn't say anything. Leia sighs. "Well, now you've found her. It's time to get a move on. Galaxy needs to be saved, and all that." Her mouth twists in a humorless smile that is not unlike what he'd sometimes seen in the mirror. "Again."
"Yeah." Ben clambers out of the too-small bed, every muscle aching in protest. "Yeah, Mom, I know."
☾✩☽
There is a wound in Rey's mind that has been there since Exegol. It hasn't faded over time, but she's learned how to compartmentalize it, wrapping it up in layers of the Force and pushing it into a corner where it throbs with all the dull ache of an impacted tooth. The bond had snapped in half when Ben died, leaving her missing a piece of her soul.
Today, she wonders if things might be different.
She'd ended up falling asleep in the chair, her hand still resting on his heart. It had been torture to automatically get up at her usual time, the crack of dawn— she'd barely been able to tear herself away from him, afraid that he would vanish once he was out of sight.
But she knows a thing or two about hangovers, and he will need food to soak up last night's excesses. She's determined to provide something heartier than polystarch and the scraps of dried meat in the cellar.
She will take care of him, this time around.
First things first, though. She has to check...
Perched on a rocky ledge jutting out from the cliff side, Rey closes her eyes against the twin suns that are beginning to rise over the horizon. She coaches her breathing into the calm, steady meditation pattern, and then she finds the place where she'd stored the wound and methodically peels away the Force like she's peeling away wrappings of gauze.
It still hurts. But it's a pain that's— fading, and she can sense Ben on the other end of it. Like a slow-acting anesthetic, he's gradually filling up the empty space where he'd used to reside during the war.
His Force signature is walled off, though, and her brow wrinkles at that. There's something he's keeping from her, which she'll have to ferret out. In due time. Maybe they have time now. Maybe they're being granted a second chance.
Rey doesn't insulate the wound again. Instinct tells her that what's left of the bond needs to remain open, to breathe so that it can heal. She can live with the ache until then.
For now, she sets off in search of breakfast, picking her way through mazes of reddish, wind-carved stone. While her lightsaber is holstered at her side in case of Tusken Raiders or the larger and more dangerous beasts, it's her spear that she wields for hunting. With it, she brings down a needle rat and a bladeback boar piglet that strayed from its mother, stuffing the carcasses into her net and dragging them up over the rocks. It's seven-thirty in the morning when she reaches the summit, panting and covered in sweat and sand.
It's bitter work, but it's nothing she's not used to. Her time on Jakku had taught her how to live in a place like this.
She skins, guts, and roasts her haul on spits, over beds of glowing coals. Even with the Force urging the flames hotter and higher, it still takes the better part of an hour to cook the meat. Needle rat flesh is tough and just this side of rancid-tasting, but it's a steady part of Rey's diet and she's acclimated by now. Ben will like the tender, milk-sweet bladeback, as long as she gets the doneness right.
She's slicing the meat onto a couple of plates when the threadbare bond stirs weakly. He's waking up— her other half is waking up and oh, oh, it's so beautiful. Like a sunrise. She rushes through the remainder of her task with her heart in her throat, and then she enters the hut with her steps the lightest they've ever been.
Her first thought is that he's certainly made himself at home.
Ben's lounging in one of the two chairs at the rickety dining table, nursing a cup of caf. He's patted his hair into a semblance of order and swept it back so that his face is unobscured, so that she can clearly see his eyes focusing on her as soon as she walks in. For a moment, there is a soft reverence in their star-cut depths, and it's the same way he'd looked at her when she called him by his true name and smiled at him and touched his cheek and thought, This is it, it's me and him, we can be happy now.
She has spent countless nights alone in her narrow bed just reliving every second of that look. Crying herself to sleep at her memories of it. It hadn't gotten easier as the months wore on, and now— just as a tentative joy is starting to bloom in the wastelands of her heart—
— Ben blinks, and shifts his gaze to a point beyond her shoulder, a far more remote expression shuttering over his features.
What has happened? What's going on? She tries to peer more closely at his end of the bond, but she's clumsy and out of practice. His mental shields are impenetrable.
He's hungover, she tells herself. No one's in a good mood when they're hungover. And, indeed, his complexion is sallow, a little green around the gills. There are dark circles under his slightly bloodshot eyes. Beneath his veneer of casual elegance is a certain obstinacy, the brunt of Solo and Organa combined. Although she's bursting with questions, she will need to be patient if she wants to keep the peace.
That's all right. Hadn't she always been very good at waiting, even back then?
She approaches him, bearing plates that suddenly feel like peace offerings for some reason. "I hope you're hungry."
Ben says nothing as she sets the table with cutlery and chipped cups of water. He remains unmoving in his chair as she sits in the one opposite. After a while of staring blankly at him as he looks everywhere but at her, Rey decides that if he isn't hungry, then she sure is.
When she tucks into her plate, he does as well.
The belated epiphany dawns. Leia had been the same way, not so much as picking up a spoon before everyone else had done so. It's etiquette, which Rey has no knowledge of, which had served no purpose in the Resistance mess halls, but which a prince of Alderaan would undoubtedly be well-versed in. She comes to recognize more of Leia's table manners in his every move as their humble meal progresses in silence.
Rey is so shocked when Ben finally deigns to speak— so shocked to hear someone else's voice within the walls of her hut, period— that she almost drops her fork. "What is that?" he asks, scowling at her plate like it's committed some personal offense.
"Needle rat," she says. "Yours is bladeback."
"Yours has whiskers."
She's starting to take offense at his tone. Odd how easy it is to fall back in. "It's a protein source same as any. A staple around these parts—"
"You live like this?" he blurts out, rage simmering behind his dark eyes. "In this hovel— eating rats— "
The way he says it is so crude that Rey can't help but flinch, and Ben's face immediately drains of what little color it had. "I didn't mean— look—" He falters. His hand inches forward, as if to reach for hers, only to pull back. "I'm sorry," he mutters, that same hand raking frustrated fingers through his hair. "I'm just— why Tatooine, I don't understand—"
Rey, for her part, understands too well. There is a space between them in the shape of the year that she had to live without him and of whatever it is that had let him come back to her. She is no longer the same girl he'd loved enough to sacrifice his life for. She doesn't know if she can ever be that girl again, or if he even wants her to be.
"Maybe we can just finish eating first," she quietly suggests.
He nods, giving every indication of being chastened and relieved all at once. But instead of returning to his plate, he pushes it toward her. There's a generous amount of bladeback left. "I've had my fill."
"Ben," she starts to protest, "no—"
"Rey," he interrupts. "Please."
She stills.
And there's enough of a wryness to the line of his mouth and a self-deprecating awareness to his gaze that makes her realize he knows full well which chapter of their tragedy he's summoning with that one simple word. He's drawing a semblance of humor from it, and she wonders if he's inviting her to do the same. So that it will start to lose its power over them.
Rey takes a leap of faith.
"A novel approach," she quips as she spears a piece of bladeback on the tines of her fork.
"I knew it would work eventually," Ben drawls. "I just had to keep trying."
Her heart flutters at the fleeting half-smile that he sends her way. After shedding the mantle of Kylo Ren, he'd been so much more relaxed in his movements. More sure of himself. She had loved the Ben she'd come to know in those precious stolen moments after Starkiller Base, but the one who had finally freed himself— she'd wanted to spend the rest of her days basking in his light.
Maybe she still could.
She smiles back at him from across the table. She'll worry about mental walls and mysteries of resurrection later— for now, they're eating breakfast, and sunshine is pouring in through the windows, and she is living in her dream of what could have been.
Nothing else matters.
☾✩☽
Standing in a corner of the hut, two Jedi look on.
In these forms they come and go as they please, they can choose to manifest or conceal themselves at will, but at this particular point in time it hardly would have mattered. The living ones are too lost in each other to notice what else lies in the Force.
"Good grief," says the older one with the beard and the Core Worlds accent and the air of horrified fascination, "he's making an absolute muck of things, isn't he?"
"He's angry with himself because he wasn't strong enough to stay," says the younger Jedi, in the solemn tones of one who understands all too well. "Because he wasn't able to give her the life she deserved. He is... frustrated, to be the instrument of destiny once more. And he doesn't want to have to let her go again."
"There's a reason for everything, Anakin. We'll just have to see how it all pans out— and help, in any way that we can." The older one looks around the hut. He had been conscientious in life, and not easily distracted, but nobody is immune to the occasional bout of nostalgia. "I do love what she's done with the place."